Gaza: hunger could constitute a war crime, says UN human rights chief

After months of warning, a recent UN-backed report presented concrete statistical evidence that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is turning into a man-made famine.

The report increased pressure on Israel to fulfill its legal responsibilities to protect Palestinian civilians — and allow adequate supplies of humanitarian aid to reach people who need it.

In an interview with the BBC, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Israel was significantly to blame — and that it was a “plausible” case that the country was using famine as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Türk further stated that if intent was proven, it would amount to a war crime.

Israel’s Economy Minister Nir Barkat, a senior politician in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, dismissed Türk’s warnings as “utter nonsense — a completely irresponsible thing to say.”

Like his cabinet colleagues, Barkat insisted that Israel was allowing in all aid offered by the US and the rest of the world. Israel claims that the UN does not distribute what is left after Hamas benefits from what arrives.

But a long line of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid supplies, which the Gaza Strip desperately needs, is building up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border. They can only enter Gaza through Israel, after a series of complex and bureaucratic checks.

The lack of adequate supplies has forced Jordan, and now other countries including the US and the UK, to carry out airdrops of supplies — the least effective way to deliver humanitarian aid.

Palestinians fighting on the ground to secure some of the aid drowned while trying to swim to packages that fell into the sea, or were hit by them when their parachutes failed.

None of this would be necessary if Israel granted full road access to Gaza — and accelerated the delivery of humanitarian aid supplies through the modern port of Ashdod, just about a half-hour drive from the Gaza Strip.

During the interview, Türk said that evidence had emerged that Israel was delaying or withholding the delivery of humanitarian aid.

“All my colleagues in the humanitarian field continue to say there is a lot of bureaucracy. There are obstacles. There are obstacles… Israel is to blame in a significant way,” he said.

“I can only say that the facts speak for themselves… I understand that it is something that needs to be controlled, but it cannot take days for this to be done.”

“When you put on the table all kinds of demands that are unreasonable in an emergency…it raises the question, given all the restrictions that we currently see, whether there is a plausible claim to be made that famine is being, or it can be used, as a weapon of war.”

Concern about the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip deepened last week with the release of a study supported by a series of maps, graphs and statistics. And it has prompted more warnings from Israel’s allies that the country should change the way it is waging war against Hamas to spare civilians from death from explosives or starvation.

The study is the latest report from a respected international network known as IPC (Integrated Food Safety Phase Classification). The organization provides governments, the UN and aid agencies with apolitical data to measure the extent of hunger. The report’s headline was stark: “Gaza Strip: Famine imminent as 1.1 million people, half from Gaza, face catastrophic food insecurity.”

The report’s data explained how a major famine could emerge at any time in the next eight weeks if there was no ceasefire and humanitarian aid did not reach the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian parents who managed to take their sick and hungry children to one of the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza after Israel’s attack did not have to wait for statistics. For weeks and months, as they struggled to feed them, they closely watched their children’s decline.

Gaza is not a place to get sick. A girl admitted to hospital, contacted by a Palestinian freelance journalist working for the BBC, was lying semi-conscious on a bed.

Noora Mohammed has pulmonary and liver fibrosis, two conditions that can be fatal even in times of peace. In the months of hunger since the start of the war, and without adequate medical care, her health is deteriorating rapidly.

“My daughter can’t move,” says the mother. “She is anemic, always sleeping, and there is nothing nutritious to eat.”

At least Noora managed to get to the hospital. Most of the just over a million inhabitants of Gaza considered to be in extreme need will not have this option.

The evidence of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is overwhelming. The photos we took at the hospital show children with swollen joints, withered limbs and dermatitis, all classic symptoms of acute malnutrition.

He added that allies around the world supported Israel’s strategic objective. When presented with the fact that many of Israel’s friends, starting with US President Joe Biden, were not happy with the way Israel was waging the war, Barkat was blunt.

“This is tough. We are going to end the war. We are going to do everything we can to kill the Hamas terrorists and minimize collateral damage as much as possible,” he said.

“With all due respect, we are fighting evil, and we hope the world will help us fight evil until we eliminate Hamas from the map.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights gave a succinct response to Israel’s harsh criticism.

“The only thing I can tell them is that there is an international consensus emerging, and it may not have existed before, but it is clearly present now, including with this week’s Security Council resolution, on the humanitarian situation,” Türk said.

“The human rights situation is so tragic that an immediate ceasefire is necessary. This is my response to that.”